John Michael Musbach, a man from the U.S., was already convicted for child sex crime.
And this time, he faces another case, as he is charged with murder for hire attempt, the U.S. Attorney's Office in New Jersey said.
It is reported that Musbach tried to hire a hitman from the dark web to kill his teenage victim.
Musbach of Haddonfield is accused of paying about 40 Bitcoins (worth $20,000 at the time) to the administrator of a dark web website that pretended to offer contract killings.
And here, Musbach is charged by indictment with one count of murder-for-hire.
The case happened way back in the summer of 2015.
According to a statement from the U.S. Department of Justice, the documents filed in this case reads:
It was the victim's parents who discovered the conversations between the two, and notified the police.
The victim lives in New York. To authorize an investigation, the police of New York notified the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office (ACPO), which continued the case's investigation.
It was in March 31, 2016, that the authorities from the ACPO arrested Musbach on child pornography charges.
After they executed a search warrant at his residence, the authorities seized Musbach’s mobile phone and his business laptop, and conducted even thorough investigation from there.
Musbach admitted to having sent sexually explicit images and videos of himself to the victim, and also having requested and received sexually explicit images and videos from the victim, all while knowing that the victim was 13-years old.
A year later, in 2017, Musbach pleaded guilty, and was then sentenced on February of 2018, by a New Jersey Superior Court Judge, to a two-year suspended sentence with parole supervision for life.
In 2019, more information poured in.
It is said that an anonymous source began sending the authorities about Musbach, saying that Musbach has tried hiring a hitman from a murder-for-hire website on the dark web.
“If you want to kill someone, or to beat the s--t out of him, we are the right guys," the site read. "We have professional hitmen available throughout the entire USA, Canada and Europe and you can hire a contract killer easily. Most of our gang members are drug dealers but they do contract killing when they are short on cash. No undercover cops here. No risks of getting caught, because we are professional killers: We don’t ask you for your name, we don’t want to know who you are or where you live… "
Due to the nature of the deep web, the seller only accepted cryptocurrencies, in which Musbach complied. Musbach is said to have asked the administrator whether a 14-year-old target is too young. And upon hearing that it's not a problem, he sent the administrator of the site about 40 Bitcoins for the kill, and repeatedly messaged the administrator for follow ups.
“There is a small problem,” the administrator wrote. “The assigned hit man got arrested for cocaine possession while he was near the place. We have another hit man ready to do the hit, but he saith this is an important person.”
The administrator then asked for $5,000 more, as written in the complaint.
When Musbach demanded a refund, the administrator of the dark web website revealed that he was scammed.
The administrator then threatened to reveal Musbach's information to the police.
"No, this is not a joke. The [website name redacted] has been hacked."
"We the hackers have full control over it, we infected it with malware and Javascript and extracted everything from your computer. We have proofs that you ordered the murder, who you are, who the target is, and proof that you paid for it, you will be arrested unless you send us 22 bitcoin..."
The police who did the investigation, traced Musbach's activities on the web through his nickname "agentisai", devices which have IP addresses, and his bank accounts that have records on transactions with Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange..
“An examination of Musbach’s computer, revealed several internet searches establishing Musbach’s intent to injure or kill an individual and also to cover-up these actions,” the agent explained.
Because Musbach is found guilty, he is facing a maximum potential penalty of 10 years in prison and a fine of the greater of $250,000.
It should be noted that while the investigators didn't name the dark web website, but the descriptions of its sales pitch in court filings matched those associated with the now-defunct Besa Mafia site.
As for the administrator of the site, the person uses the nickname “Yura.”
Yura is said to live somewhere in Europe, and went on to launch several similar dark-web scam sites after Besa Mafia was shut down.